Dance Studies in China: Selected Writings from the Journal of Beijing Dance Academy

By Intellect Books

Dance Studies in China is a collection of articles selected from issues of the Journal of Beijing Dance Academy, translated for an English-speaking audience. Beijing Dance Academy is a full-time institution of higher learning with commitment to developing excellent professional dancers, choreographers and dance researchers. This collection includes an interview with Shen Wei, the Chinese-American choreographer, painter and director living in New York City, USA.

Founded in 1954, the former Beijing Dance School was the first professional dance school ever established since the founding of People’s Republic of China. Beijing Dance Academy (BDA) officially established in 1978, it provides BA and MA degrees and has become the only institution of higher learning for professional dance education in China, as well as the largest prestigious dance school with comprehensive concentrations in the world.

In recent years, BDA has committed to develop its research profile specialising in dance, the Journal of Beijing Dance Academy is one of such outcomes. The Academy is also actively engaging with international collaboration.

The Intellect China Library is a series of new English translations of the latest scholarship in Chinese that have not previously been available. Subjects covered include visual arts, performing arts, popular culture, media and the broader creative industries. The series aims to foster intellectual debate and to promote closer cross-cultural knowledge exchange by introducing unique Chinese scholarship and ideas to our readers.

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Intellect Books
• Release date: Apr 19, 2022
• ISBN: 9781789385298

Book preview

Dance Studies in China

Dance Studies in China

Selected Writings from the Journal of Beijing Dance Academy

edited by

Deng Youling and Zhang Yanjie

translated by

Cai Shuo, Zhao Yuting

First published in the UK in 2022 by

Intellect, The Mill, Parnall Road, Fishponds, Bristol, BS16 3JG, UK

First published in the USA in 2022 by

Intellect, The University of Chicago Press, 1427 E. 60th Street,

Chicago, IL 60637, USA

Copyright © 2022 Intellect Ltd

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

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Cover designer: Tanya Montefusco

Production manager: Jessica Lovett

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Hardback ISBN 978-1-78938-527-4

       ePDF ISBN 978-1-78938-528-1

        ePub ISBN 978-1-78938-529-8

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This is a peer-reviewed publication.

Contents

Preface

PART 1: DANCE EDUCATION IN CHINA

1.‘Dance Education Should Focus on People and Society’: Interview with the President of Beijing Dance Academy, Professor Guo Lei

Guo Lei, translated by Cai Shuo

PART 2: DANCE ARTIST

2.‘The Mission of Artists is to Lead the Development of Human Culture in the Future’: Interview with Shen Wei

Shen Wei and Zhang Yanjie, translated by Cai Shuo

PART 3: RESEARCH ON DANCE THEORIES AND DANCE HISTORY

3.The Formation and Direction of a Chinese School of Dance Studies

Deng Youling, translated by Cai Shuo

4.Interpretation and Reproduction of De Shou Gong Dance Notation from the Song Dynasty

Liu Qingyi, translated by Cai Shuo

5.From ‘Lady Gongsun’ to ‘Chinese Dama’: Square Dance as the Latest Form in Chinese Dance History

Hu Yifeng, translated by Zhao Yuting

PART 4: RESEARCH ON DANCE CULTURE

6.The Interaction, Integration and Synthesis of Square Dance and Traditional Dance in the Process of Urbanization in China

Huang Jiying, translated by Cai Shuo

7.Structure and Function of the Self-Organized Folk Dance ‘Flower-Drum Group’ of the Yi People in Yunnan Province

Huang Longguang, translated by Cai Shuo

8.Artistic Behaviour and Aesthetic Exploration in Western Experimental Screen Dance

Yuan Yi, translated by Zhao Yuting

PART 5: RESEARCH ON DANCE CREATION AND DANCE PERFORMANCE

9.Reflections on the Aesthetic Dimension and its Structural Form in Contemporary Dance Creation in China

Zhang Ping, translated by Zhao Yuting

10.The Reconstruction and Expansion of the ‘Five Methods’ of Xiqu in Chinese Classical Dance Shenyun

Wang Xi, translated by Cai Shuo

PART 6: DANCE SCIENCE

11.Exploring and Realizing the Function of Dance in the Context of ‘Healthy China’

Wen Rou, translated by Zhao Yuting

Preface

The chapters in this volume were selected from articles published in the 2018 and 2019 issues of the Journal of Beijing Dance Academy (JBDA). The purpose of the volume is to disseminate the academic achievements in Chinese dance, demonstrate the rich and profound Chinese dance cultural tradition, and show the development, academic research vision and achievements of contemporary Chinese dance art. It also aims to build an equal dialogue and exchange platform with international dance academia.

The articles were selected for inclusion in this volume based on the following criteria. First, the articles needed to have a high level of academic innovation, a solid evidence base and academic quality. Second, the articles reflect the forefront of theoretical development of the Chinese school in the study of contemporary dance. Third, the articles focus on the development of Chinese contemporary society and the phenomenon of dance culture, reflecting the close relationship between dance art and people and society. Fourth, the articles demonstrate the creation of contemporary Chinese dance and dance cultural concepts. Lastly, the articles focus on the development of international dance art and contemporary dance art creation, highlighting international perspectives on Chinese dance research which resonate with the international dance and academic communities.

The chapters in the volume cover different aspects of dance education, basic theory of dance, dance history, dance culture, dance creation, dance–art crossover, dance science and interviews with famous choreographers. The chapters comprehensively reflect the overall state of academic research on Chinese dance and the latest trends of dance scholarship, demonstrating the fresh ideas of established dance scholars, as well as a new exploration of young dance researchers.

We thank Dr. Hiu Man Chan and Ms. Jessica Lovett of Intellect Books for their strong support. The editorial department of JBDA sincerely hopes that the chapters in this volume that represent the wisdom and thoughts of Chinese scholars can contribute to world dance art research, and become a bridge between China and dance researchers around the world.

Dr. Deng Youling

Vice President of Beijing Dance Academy

Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Beijing Dance Academy

Dr. Zhang Yanjie

Associate Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Beijing Dance Academy

PART 1

DANCE EDUCATION IN CHINA

1

‘Dance Education Should Focus on People and Society’

Interview with the President of Beijing Dance Academy, Professor Guo Lei

Guo Lei,¹ translated by Cai Shuo

Next year marks the 65th anniversary of the establishment of the Beijing Dance School. In recent years, under the leadership of the academy’s Party Committee and the joint efforts of everyone involved, considerable progress has been made with various academy undertakings. The education and teaching reforms have shown significant results and we would like to take this opportunity to present recent developments in areas such as talent cultivation, artistic creation, academic achievement, social engagement and foreign exchange. Since 2014, focused on our main task of talent cultivation, there have been steady structural adjustments in education and teaching reforms and our expectations have largely been met. Despite many difficulties and much resistance, we remain determined to meet our reform goals. As education administrator, we must look at and solve problems from a developmental viewpoint in the face of the latest technological advances and rapid social development.

Back in 1954, when the school was first founded, its orientation was clearly defined. Its aim was to train dance performers for national troupes, such as the National Ballet of China and the Oriental Song and Dance Ensemble (dongfang gewutuan). At the time, under the influence of the planned economy and the professional dance education concepts of Soviet experts, our tasks were relatively simple. Only two genres, namely ballet and Chinese dance (the latter of which was in the process of being developed), were offered at the secondary level, while the only goal was to cultivate performing talent. In 1978, Beijing Dance School was restructured as Beijing Dance Academy and the first group of undergraduates were recruited in 1980. It received accreditation to confer master’s degrees in 2001, a Master of Fine Art in Music and Dance in 2005 and we are now working towards offering a Ph.D. programme. We have also been able to offer a joint Ph.D. programme in cooperation with Peking University in recent years. Although the school’s remit was relatively straightforward, the Soviet Union’s professional dance education concept remains deeply rooted in the school. With the reform and opening up of our country, especially the globalization brought by the internet, future requirements for the cultivation of dance talent have changed significantly in the face of generational development and societal advancement. In the new era, it is necessary to set new directions and standards for talent cultivation.

With the restructuring that has taken place from secondary education to higher education, one of the critical questions is: what makes a university? How would we build a world-class dance university with Chinese characteristics? The first thing to establish is the educational philosophy and academic spirit, and we cannot consider these in isolation from culture, humanity and society. Therefore, the university is by no means a simple upgraded version of the affiliated secondary school. The experts invited to assist during the teaching evaluation preparation period were able to pinpoint the problem. They were very positive about the current vision and mission of Beijing Dance Academy and gave us credit for our forward thinking. As a university, we must first pay attention to society and the people, and only then attend to our unique educational characteristics and dance specialization as an art school.

However, an honest appraisal would be that the academy’s current talent cultivation model cannot fully meet societal needs. A large proportion of the courses focus on ‘physical’ training, while relatively little attention is paid to students’ ‘thinking’. At the university level, courses that can offer more up-to-date knowledge and information, that can stimulate students’ critical thinking and exploration, along with providing innovation in terms of content and teaching methods, are all too few. While the evaluation experts were able to pinpoint the issue just by looking at the curriculum design, it was not such a simple task to ensure all teachers at the academy were at the same starting point; the process needed time. The academy’s Party Committee made and passed the decision to bring forward the establishment of a School of Performance. This decision will profoundly impact the leadership role that Beijing Dance Academy is to take in dance education in China in the future. Therefore, for those yet to understand the decision, we are open to communication; for those yet to adapt, we will allow it time.

The aesthetic experience of dance can profoundly impact our lives and ourselves as human beings. Although in the past we often considered this issue at the ‘technical’ level in the realm of performance, that era has passed. If putting the focus on the technical level was deemed reasonable when the secondary school was first founded, a different focus is needed at the university level, as only when dance has a profound impact on people and society can it fully reflect the value and significance of dance education. At present, this is the core purpose and main challenge in the education and teaching reforms. We are all too used to the traditional training method, which I refer to as ‘follow me’. We spend too much time training students’ imitation and memorization abilities, while the future needs creative talents.

Regarding the curriculum, it is actually a reflection of our educational thoughts. Everything must ultimately be implemented into the courses, in the classroom and reflected in the quality of talent cultivation. We need to look into how to guide students to think, question, discover and create. First, why practise? How should students practise? This is a form of training in critical thinking; and then the question has to be further advanced to the philosophical level. For instance, we have a Laban Movement Analysis course. In reality, there would be no Labanotation without Laban’s philosophy. Labanotation is a concrete manifestation of Laban’s artistic philosophy and achievements in dance science. In other words, we will pay particular attention to disciplinary construction (building on our current knowledge base and establishing new areas of knowledge) at the philosophical and scientific level in the future. Dance science is another example; there are related majors and interdisciplinary research in areas such as dance therapy, somatics and neuroscience in many other countries. As the only independent dance university in China, if we do not explore and develop such fields as soon as possible, we will inevitably be in danger of falling behind current developments.

The second question is how to establish and improve a contemporary system of dance higher education. In the new era, how we build a dance university is worthy of being repeatedly questioned. Our latest round of education and teaching reform starting in 2015 included a plan to form four schools. The first three schools have been established while there have been some delays in the establishment of the School of Performance, for two reasons. One is the wide scope of the project, involving a major change to the school with the departments involved being core to the academy. Our school was founded on the three pillars of Chinese classical dance, Chinese ethnic and folk dance, and ballet; therefore, we have to proceed with caution and allow time for this idea to be thought through. The other reason has to do with the concept: we need conceptual change of such a scale that it could even be considered ‘a change that touches the soul’. To put it bluntly, this change is, to a large extent, a necessary improvement and optimization of the teaching traditions that we used to be proud of, both in terms of teaching methods and efficiency. For instance, too many hours are allocated to high-intensity training in traditional technical skills, taking up most of the students’ time when they should be studying and thinking independently. The students hardly have any time to read books on topics other than dance. It is no exaggeration that this is a serious issue in respect of the knowledge base of students. Therefore, we must first change our concepts. Establishing and perfecting a new dance higher education system is the top priority of our reform and it starts with overall structural adjustment. The guiding principles proposed by the academy, including ‘to integrate, to open up, to expand, and to improve’, as well as ‘reasonable structure, comprehensive foundation, innovative approach and systematic mechanism’ are all very clear. For example, ‘to integrate’ and ‘to open up’ are great solutions to the isolation of the academy, which is an unintended consequence of the long-term privileged status of the Beijing Dance Academy as the best in the country. Do Chinese classical dance majors not also need to learn Chinese ethnic and folk dance? Do Chinese ethnic and folk dance majors not also need to know about modern dance and ballet? The Beijing Dance Academy Dance Company is an obvious example. You have to have the ability to dance in different genres on stage. There is an increasingly urgent societal demand for the cultivation of well-rounded dance talents with innovative spirit rather than just dancers who only know how to perform. In addition, cultural and humanistic qualities are also of great importance.

So, what should be established and improved in the contemporary system of dance higher education? Building university functions around talent cultivation, scientific research, social services, cultural inheritance and international exchanges are all issues management needs to consider, because only when such foundations are in place will building a world-class dance university with Chinese characteristics be practicable. In other words, we need to lay the foundations first. Only when a university has a solid foundation can top talents emerge. What we have now are skilled dance performing talents. Therefore, we propose transitioning our dance talent cultivation model from ‘skill-oriented top talents’ to ‘quality [suzhi] oriented top talents’. Such a transition will inevitably bring further crossovers between majors and subject fields, including research in such areas as dance management, dance science and the dance cultural industry, and will inevitably influence the current faculty’s vital interests. This is a big challenge, especially for faculty members accustomed to teaching only one course in their lifetime. There are many similar problems at this point and moving forward is indeed difficult. Therefore, the academy has been guiding and paving the way to build consensus gradually; the current teaching evaluation review is an example.

At present, the academy’s deepening education and teaching reforms focus on the issues mentioned above. Actions taken include structural adjustments, establishing four schools, engaging in the nation’s Double First-Class initiative and topics in dance science, dance education curriculum design and applying to establish a Ph.D. programme. Practically speaking, if we cannot fully realize the urgency of structural adjustment, the development of some disciplines and majors will merely be empty talk. For instance, we have had our major in dance performance for many years, but the theoretical research on dance performance remains quite weak. From a management perspective, this results from unequal educational resource allocation and imbalance in curriculum design. These are all issues that administrators must face.

As the only independent dance university, the Party and government really cares about and supports us, hoping that we could stand higher and gain a broader perspective. Standing at the forefront of China’s dance industry, our mission is to take a stand and responsibility. In the past few years, we have undertaken the cultural exchange mission of the nation’s Belt and Road initiative. In terms of artistic practice, we create 40 to 50 productions and put on more than 100 performances each year. For example, during the Spring Festival this year, the academy sent out seven performing groups simultaneously and all of them provided high-quality performances at a high level.

Our faculty must appreciate the big picture of education. At this point, in addition to the preponderance of traditional disciplines, for discipline development, we need to actively build majors and courses beneficial to the cultivation of ‘quality-oriented top dance talents’ in areas such as dance science and courses that cross over with other art forms. The tricky part is that the outcome of our credit system is largely dependent on the quantity and quality of courses. Unfortunately, we cannot offer many of the necessary electives or compete with institutions such as Peking University, where they have abundant resources and thousands of courses. But we must also consider what competitive weaknesses our students would face compared to students in the dance departments of Beijing Normal University and Capital Normal University after they reach the age of 30 and are near the end of their performing career. If the academy cannot provide a higher-quality elective platform which goes beyond dance and focus on transmitting richer knowledge to students, it will undoubtedly be failing our students’ career prospects in the longer term after they reach the age of 30. According to surveys, less than 30% of students become performers after they graduate from the academy, with the majority of them pursing other careers. This is a fact and it is also the result of changes over time. In the past, under the planned economy, once you gained entrance to a national troupe, you were set up for life. But now those national troupes have been restructured and individuals whose knowledge base is too narrow can no longer meet the needs of diversified social development, not to mention that knowledge is updated very quickly. Therefore, the academy should prepare students for sustainable development in the future. For example, it should provide them with the ability to learn, to solve problems creatively and get them into the habit of lifelong learning.

The academy is currently facing two main dilemmas. The first dilemma is between higher education and industry development. We always used to talk about the awards we received in the Beijing Dance Competition, National Dance Competition and ‘Taoli’ Cup, but we rarely mention the ‘985’, ‘211’, ‘Thousand Talents Plan’, ‘Cheung Kong Scholar’ and ‘Distinguished Young Scholars’ evaluation criteria for comprehensive universities. But we have to realize the nation evaluates us on criteria set for higher education. For example, when applying to establish a Ph.D. programme, we will be asked how many national major projects we have and not how many national awards we’ve won in dance competitions, because the evaluation system does not recognize these. This is a dilemma we currently face. There is a series of problems that will force our faculty towards a conceptual change. They should no longer only focus on professional competitions, but rather should actively apply for research projects at all levels, including those supported by the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Education.

The second dilemma we are facing is between the general aspects of education and the development of artistic distinctiveness. For example, students should be studying and reading independently after completing the 36 course-hours per course required for regular higher education. But a significant portion of time spent in our courses is on repetitive and intensive technical training. With time spent on creating new works and rehearsals, it is as if we want to leave no gap in students’ timetables from morning to night. But we have to realize that we are not a dance company; there is a fundamental difference. There are patterns of education. You need to convey knowledge to students within the prescribed class time and this is a pattern we must follow. For example, in our School of Creative Studies, we have implemented an adjustment to ensure that the same teacher cannot be in charge of core courses for one cohort for four straight years. Why? Every teacher’s knowledge base is limited. The raison d’être and founding principle of a school is to be student centred.

These two dilemmas are the most urgent development problems that the academy needs to address, so we must seize the opportunity for reform.

Now the academy is more and more involved in national foreign affairs and international cultural and artistic exchanges, and its influence is also expanding. At the same time, China National Art Fund has also provided strong support to our projects. Of course, this results from the academy’s continuing demonstration of professionalism, adherence to top quality and reference to international first-class standards. For example, when we participated in the Ministry of Culture’s ‘Happy Spring Festival’ performance held in Central and Eastern European countries, Croatia’s former president became a fan of ours and attended two consecutive performances put on by our dance company.

We also received great feedback for our performance in the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office of the State Council Spring Festival Gala held in Hong Kong. Compatriots from Hong Kong and Macao commented that it was the best performance they had seen in the past five years. We had to seek those opportunities. In the past, dance troupes undertook those tasks as a matter of course. The leader of the Ministry of Culture even said that in the future the Beijing Dance Academy should be allowed to decide the programme in performances held overseas by the Ministry of Culture. These statements have given us tremendous encouragement and affirmation. In recent years, we have combined our talent cultivation, teaching and creation, as well as our research achievements, with national development strategy at large, contributing to the country in this way. In major national foreign affairs activities, such as the G20 Summit and the Belt and Road Forum, people can often find top-quality works representing Chinese culture at the world level performed by the Beijing Dance Academy. For instance, Swan Lake danced in water at the opening ceremony of the G20 Summit was an exquisite piece offered by our academy which attracted the world’s attention. However, we